"How do I help someone who is grieving?" This is the perennial question when it comes to showing up for people we care about after someone dies. Zack Wheat, a Board Certified Chaplain, knows more than most about what people who are grieving need - and don't need. Professionally, Zack knows about this from his work as a hospital chaplain for an inpatient palliative care team. He also knows about it from his time volunteering as a facilitator in peer grief support groups at Dougy Center. But, long...
Sep 07, 2023•41 min•Ep. 264
Lionel Irving is the founder of Love is Stronger , an organization in Portland, OR dedicated to supporting gang-impacted families and communities in building healing, accountability, and safety. While Lionel and Love is Stronger focus on interrupting gun violence, this work is also rooted in grief. Lionel's uncle was shot and killed by the police in 1975. His cousin Donald was killed in 1999 by a rival gang. His mother died of a sudden illness when Lionel was 20. In the last two years, he went t...
Aug 11, 2023•51 min•Ep. 263
What does it mean to be a cultural kinkeeper and how does that idea relate to grief? These are two of the questions we explore with Anika Chabra , co-founder of Root & Seed , a platform meant to inspire people to collect and document family stories, recipes, and traditions. When Anika’s mom died suddenly in 2019, she realized just how much she didn’t know, not just about her mom, but also about their family history and cultural traditions. Root & Seed is Anika’s offering to help others h...
Aug 03, 2023•47 min•Ep. 262
As more opportunities for non-traditional grief support arise, it's no surprise that many of them are happening in historically marginalized communities who have not felt relevantly supported in those settings. The Grief Garden, co-created by Julia Mall ory , a multidisiciplinary artist, and Tiana Zabala, the garden manager at Goggleworks Center for the Art s is the perfect example of this type of offering. The Grief Garden was designed to bring people together, in relationship with the outdoors...
Jul 14, 2023•50 min•Ep. 261
Pierce Freelon is a GRAMMY® nominated musician, author, and educator. He is also a son, a father, a husband, and an astute observer of life and grief and everything in between. Pierce was a caregiver for his father, Phil Freelon , a renowed architect who died of ALS. He's also the author of the new children's book, Daddy and Me: Side by Side, a beautiful rendering of the times Pierce and his father spent in nature, and how Pierce is doing the same with his own son. A few hours before our intervi...
Jul 07, 2023•44 min•Ep. 260
When Kelly S. Thompson and her older sister Meghan were children, they were close. Meghan was Kelly’s protector and constant as they moved around as a military family. Things shifted when Meghan hit adolescence and started using substances. Their connection disintegrated and they spent years barely in touch. When Meghan stopped using, they came back together and worked to rebuild trust and repair their relationship. Then, on the same day Meghan gave birth to her second child, she was diagnosed w...
Jun 23, 2023•40 min•Ep. 259
Jamie Thrower is a Queer death doula, end-of-life educator, and grief guide in Portland, OR. She is also the founder of the Queer Grief Club which provides inclusive non-traditional grief support offerings for those grieving both death and non-death losses. Jamie knows from her personal experience of grieving the deaths of her parents and her daughter, Birdie, who she and her wife lost in the second trimester, just how important it is for grief support to be reflective of identity, relationships...
Jun 16, 2023•51 min•Ep. 258
Even though most of us know and accept that grief doesn't have an end point, it can still be surprising to witness how much it impacts almost every aspect of our lives, including our relationships. This was true for Daniel, who was two days away from his 8th birthday when his father died of a brain tumor. When he was a kid, grief impacted Daniel's relationship with a sense of safety and security. As a young adult, it affected what he was looking for in his dating relationships. Throughout his li...
Jun 08, 2023•42 min•Ep. 257
What happens when you take a year away from your income generating work to focus completely on grief? This is the question Rebecca Feinglos faced at the end of 2021. Grief wasn't new to Rebecca. She was a teenager when her mother died of brain cancer. On the same day her state shut down due to the COVID pandemic, she got a call that her father had died suddenly. In the ensuing months, she ended her marriage. So, by the time she got to the end of 2021, she was exhausted and empty and unwell. It's...
May 25, 2023•52 min•Ep. 256
It's generally accepted that there's no official end point to grief, but what happens when there's also no end point to the questions about someone's death? Charlotte Maya's life changed drastically when she came home from a hike with her two young children to find two police officers and a priest at her house, waiting with news that her husband Sam had died by suicide. In those early days of grief Charlotte dealt with sadness, anger, confusion, and the endless tasks that come when someone dies....
May 16, 2023•43 min•Ep. 256
"What was your dad like?" It's a simple question that's not easy to answer when you had a complicated relationship with the person who died. Claire's dad died of a stroke almost four years ago and one of the first emotions she felt was relief. Relief that she wouldn't have to worry if he would want to walk her down the aisle when she got married. Relief she wouldn't have to wonder how he'd act in the future. She also felt deep grief and sadness about the relationship they never got to have. Clai...
Apr 28, 2023•42 min•Ep. 255
When her father died of cancer, a few days before her 18th birthday, Laurel Braitman started running. Running towards the academic and professional accomplishments her father pushed her to achieve and running away from the intense shame and guilt she carried about their last conversation. It wasn’t until her 30’s that Laurel stopped running long enough to face her greatest fear: feeling her feelings. Laurel’s newest book, What Looks Like Bravery: An epic journey through loss to love , chronicles...
Apr 14, 2023•47 min•Ep. 253
At the age of 27, Dr. Peg Sandeen faced an impossible request. Her husband, John, who was dying from HIV/AIDS, told Peg that he couldn’t stand the pain anymore and wanted her to help him end his life. It was the early 1990’s though and there was no legal avenue for Peg to help John in his wish to die with the dignity he had in life. Peg went on to get both a Master's and Ph.D. in social work. Throughout that time, the memory of John’s last wish motivated her to work towards changing the landscap...
Mar 31, 2023•38 min•Ep. 252
Meet Me Where I Am , a new film by Grant Garry, explores the topic of grief through individual stories of loss, love, and hope. The film aims to normalize grief in our culture and explores how we can actively participate in helping others through grief. Grant has always been curious about grief, from his first experience when his grandmother died when he was a teenager to his most recent loss, the death of his uncle. Meet Me Where I Am is the culmination of that curiosity, and a dedication to en...
Mar 24, 2023•39 min•Ep. 251
Colin Campbell is a lot of things - writer, husband, friend - but the role he identifies with most is being a father. So, when his two teenage children, Ruby & Hart, were killed by a drunk driver in 2019, Colin was lost and terrified. Who was he without his kids? How would he survive the intensity of grief? Soon after their deaths, well-meaning friends and family would say, "There are no words," but for Colin, this phrase wasn't comforting. It left him feeling more alone because what he real...
Mar 17, 2023•47 min•Ep. 250
When Jessica Schaffer 's partner of 25 years, Patrice, died in March of 2021, she found herself untethered. In the early days of grief, Jessica went within, needing to find her orbital pattern in this new solar system without Patrice. During this time she also germinated seeds of creativity. Seeds that were planted by Patrice when she gifted Jessica an iPad, just days before she learned she was dying. In the fall of 2021, Jessica picked up the iPad and started drawing. This process inspired her ...
Mar 06, 2023•38 min•Ep. 249
It's rare for a story to have just one side, especially in grief. This is true for Eddie, whose father died of suicide in 2021. One side of the story is how Eddie's father was in the world - extremely successful and well-regarded. Another side of the story is how he was at home and in his relationship with her. In grief, Eddie has had to reckon with missing her dad while also being confused about why she is missing him. She's also had to navigate living in the world without a dad who was such a ...
Feb 24, 2023•36 min•Ep. 248
When Tida Beattie's Thai immigrant parents died in 2019, she went from being a long-distance caregiver to an overwhelmed & grieving daughter. In her search for support, she found what so many do, a lack of culturally specific or informed resources. This experience motivated her to change this for others by creating spaces for immigrant families to receive support before and after a death. Tida is a Thai-American end-of-life doula, grief support facilitator, immigrant advocate, and co-founder...
Feb 17, 2023•45 min•Ep. 247
The list of things to do when someone dies is long and burdensome. If one of the things on that list was, "return to work," then this episode is for you. If you're a manager or co-worker wondering how to best support someone when they get to that item on the list, this episode is also for you. In a world where most companies provide woefully inadequate, if any, bereavement leave, many people have to return before they are ready, and when they do go back they are usually met with awkward comments...
Feb 02, 2023•47 min•Ep. 246
After her mother died in 2013, Charlene Lam faced the daunting prospect of dealing with all of her belongings. Making decisions about what to keep felt impossible, so Charlene turned to her skills as a gallery curator and asked herself: “If I was to do an exhibition about my mother, which 100 objects would I choose?” This experience transformed Charlene's understanding of how to interact with the objects of people's lives. It also inspired her to create the The Grief Gallery and become a grief c...
Jan 20, 2023•50 min•Ep. 245
We wanted to release this episode at the beginning of the new year, because it hits on a topic we haven’t explored much before – psychic mediumship. It’s something that comes up in our groups at Dougy Center and the people who bring it up usually do so with a lot of trepidation and concern for how others will respond. We figured if it's coming up in our groups, many of you out there might also be curious about this kind of work. Patty Montoya is a psychic medium, energy healer, anticipatory grie...
Jan 06, 2023•37 min•Ep. 244
"Are we going to be okay?" This was one of the first questions Amy Choi & Rebecca Lehrer, co-founders of The Mash-Up Americans, posed in their new podcast series, Grief, Collected. Throughout episodes with folks like adrienne maree brown, Dorothy Holinger, and Linda Thai, Rebecca and Amy explore what grief is and how it impacts us emotionally, physically, culturally, and collectively. Rebecca & Amy talk about the questions they posed in this series and how the answers they uncovered are ...
Dec 20, 2022•45 min•Ep. 243
Many of us end up working in the grief world because of our personal experiences. We want to give others what we most needed. This is especially true for Melody Lomboy-Lowe and her niece Gracelyn Bateman , who co-founded Luna Peak Foundation in the hopes of supporting both those affected by cancer and those grieving a death. Melody was diagnosed with cancer when she was 6 and went through intensive treatment until she was 9. Gracelyn's dad, and Melody's brother-in-law, died of a cardiac event wh...
Dec 10, 2022•40 min•Ep. 242
When your parent is one of six people in medical history to be diagnosed with and die from a rare disease, the phrase, "The odds are one in a million" takes on a very different meaning. This was true for Rebecca Hobbs-Lawrence, Pathways Program Coordinator at Dougy Center, who was 11 when her father died of heart cancer. At that point, she decided that if something tragic could happen, it would most likely happen to her. This worldview informed so much of how she approached school, dating, famil...
Dec 03, 2022•36 min•Ep. 241
For a lot of us, the end of year holidays + grief = the (not) most wonderful time of the year. Rebecca Hobbs-Lawrence, Pathways Program & Group Coordinator at Dougy Center, is back for our annual Holidays & Grief episode. We discuss negotiating with family and friends around how we want to celebrate or not celebrate and how the past few years have shifted our priorities. Rebecca also shares how she and her family are approaching the holidays with a new type of grief, her mother having Al...
Nov 21, 2022•22 min•Ep. 240
Have you found it difficult to read anything longer than a paragraph since your person died? It's a phenomenon familiar, both personally and professionally, to Eleanor Haley, MS & Litsa Williams, MA, LCSW-C. Eleanor & Litsa started the What's Your Grief community back in 2012 as a way to create the kind of grief resources they most needed in their own lives and for the clients they supported. They just published their first book, What's Your Grief - Lists to Help You Through Any Loss , a...
Nov 15, 2022•44 min•Ep. 239
We deliberated for a long time about whether it was appropriate for us to do an episode on pet loss. We know from those grieving the death of a person that it can hurt when someone tries to relate to their loss by sharing about their pet who died. We also know that grief is grief. Pets bring us joy and laughter and frustration and tears and love - just like humans do. In the end we decided to do this episode because we want to honor that for many people, their pets are family members, and the gr...
Nov 03, 2022•41 min•Ep. 238
Día de Los Muertos, or “Day of the Dead,” is a two-day holiday to remember family members and friends who have died. Día de Los Muertos has origins throughout Mexico and parts of Latin America, and is celebrated on November 1 and 2. The holiday is not a version of Halloween, but rather an enduring ritual celebrated since ancient times. Valenca Valenzuela, MSW, Volunteer Coordinator at Dougy Center, joins us to talk about the history of Día de Los Muertos, her personal connection to the holiday, ...
Oct 28, 2022•25 min•Ep. 237
Charlie Tull has two lives, but he's not deceiving anyone. There's his civilian one that he lives with his kids and family and there's his professional one that he spends with his firefighter family. In 2018, one of his fire family members, Eli, died of a heart condition. Three years later in 2021, another member of his fire family, Scott, died of COVID. Charlie's first reaction to both of these shocking and unexpected deaths was numbness. Then, he went underground with his grief. Over time thou...
Oct 21, 2022•37 min•Ep. 236
Mark Chesnut is a NYC-based journalist, editor, and public speaker. His book, Prepare for Departure, Notes on a single mother, a misfit son, inevitable mortality, and the enduring allure of frequent flyer miles , is about love and care and acceptance – not the infamous acceptance from the 5 stages of grief – but the acceptance that can happen between a mother and son when one of their lives is coming to an end. This episode travels to a lot of places, including: What Mark learned about grief fro...
Oct 07, 2022•34 min•Ep. 235
